The Imo State Government on Tuesday buried the victims of Friday’s illegal oil refinery explosion at a forest in the Abaezi community in the Ohaji-Egbema Local Government Area of the state.
The tragedy, which claimed over 100 lives, razed all the vehicles at the illegal refinery site.
The mass burial, which occurred at 5.05 pm, saw the victims who were burnt beyond recognition lowered into three graves.
The victims were buried at the explosion site with few community members present.
Though there were no relatives of the victims present, the Interim Management Committee Chairman of the LGA, Marcel Amadioha, told journalists that he had the instruction of the state governor, Hope Uzodimma, to conduct mass burial for the victims.
Assisted by the Nigerian Red Cross Society and National Emergency Management Agency staff members, the council boss said the development saddened his people.
Apart from the mass burial, staff members of the Environmental Health from the council headquarters started fumigation of the scene.
This, the council chairman said, was to forestall outbreak of diseases in the area.
Amadioha said, “We have the instruction of the governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma, to conduct mass burial for the explosion victims.
“This is the least we can do for them because they were burnt beyond recognition. You can see there are no relatives of the victims who are here. This is because the victims were unidentifiable. This is the least we can do to avoid their bodies from decaying further.
“I believe this will serve as a deterrent to others. We are clamping down on all illegal refineries in this area. We can’t allow this economic sabotage to continue. We deserve better than this. The governor has shown enough compassion by providing us with enough logistics to carry out this mass burial.”
One of the youth leaders, Ben Marcos, told our correspondent that the community was carrying out a sensitisation programme against oil theft in the community.
He said that the community’s youths assisted government officials in burying the victims to ensure that there was no outbreak of epidemics in the community.
A cleansing process was carried out before the mass burial.
Meanwhile, some concerned civil society organisations, on Tuesday, called on the Federal Government to carry out a comprehensive clampdown on illegal refineries and crude oil theft to avert loss of lives and prevent ecological disaster in the country.
The coalition, made up of eleven groups, also condemned the sale of illegally refined petroleum products in the open market, stressing that artisanal refining was fast becoming a key source of environmental pollution and deaths among youth in the Niger Delta.
The call of the CSOs, co-ordinated by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, came on the heels of the Imo explosion.
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